


amber-lit

by Crystalinastar



Series: Duke Week 2020 [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), We Are Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalinastar/pseuds/Crystalinastar
Summary: In a world where Batman never returned and his family scattered, the We Are Robin movement has grown and become the city’s new protectors. Now older, they have a conversation around a kitchen counter.
Relationships: Daxton Chill & Andre Cipriani & Isabella Ortiz & Riko Sheridan & Duke Thomas
Series: Duke Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902853
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	amber-lit

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Duke Week Day Three, We Are Robin! 
> 
> i love this comic run so much so i knew i had to. the title is iffy to me but it feels poetic-ish so it stays

When you lead a movement of maybe a hundred-fifty kids, you learn to never get used to silence. 

_Tap, tap, tap._

Duke walks into the kitchen, seeing Riko fiddling with a pencil, tapping it on the marble counter, and staring out through the window above the sink. The sun lowers in the sky, amber light washing over everyone.

The silence is eerie, what with everyone waiting to make the first move. He remembers his first night as a Robin, his first night wearing the red jacket when they seemed to be constantly bickering. 

Years of this changes people. 

He raises his eyebrows and plops down in a chair. “How are y’all doing?” he asks, not quietly, but only just loud enough to cut through the tension. 

Izzy grunts softly, her eyes drooping after a late night. Stakeout, probably. Duke tries to keep track of everything that the Robins do, but it covers a much wider scope than it did when he was sixteen. 

He notes her bloodshot eyes and jokingly wonders to himself if the red in them could be counted as Robin colors. The police have taken people in for less.

“The new recruits are learning fast,” Riko tells him, still tapping the pencil, dark eyes wandering. “There’s one—Carrie Kelley—I think she can be promoted to one of the squads in a few weeks. The others will take time.”

“That’s good,” Duke replies, “but you know that’s not what I meant. How are you guys? Answer me honestly.”

Dre snorts. “Since when have you?” He cocks his head towards the stack of textbooks on the counter, a gleaming Robin pin placed on top. A lock of brown hair falls in his face, the rest loosely pulled into a ponytail not unlike Duke’s own (whereas Izzy and Riko cut theirs short for convenience and personal style, which Duke always finds amusing).

Duke shrugs. “Fair enough. But I feel like we haven’t been talking enough recently. We should go out, have some fun. Relax,” he adds as an afterthought. “We can leave Gotham to someone else for one day. I know Terry can handle my business.”

“We’re running low on grapplers,” interjects Dax, covering a yawn with his hand. “I was planning to stay at the workshop tomorrow and fix the broken ones.”

“Harper can handle it,” Izzy says, glancing over to Duke. He lets a smile creep onto his face as he thinks of Harper and her azure-haired brilliance. She never became a Robin, but she’s somehow always there when they need her. She packs a mean punch underneath her friendly mechanic persona. 

He always got the impression she lost something, when they talk about Robin business in front of her and she gets this wistful look in her eye. But they all lost something, hadn’t they? Years ago, when Batman and his allies skipped town. 

Bruce Wayne died a little after that, in what the papers called a noble sacrifice. Duke remembers Wayne trying to _talk_ to Mister Bloom, talk him out of attacking the whole city. He supposes Wayne was trying to prove something to himself, and obviously, it didn’t work.

Duke kept his mouth shut when his fellow Robins suspected if the events were connected, and they figured it out themselves in due time. 

The city only grew worse after that. And maybe, if they had a Nightwing, a Red Robin, maybe even the tiny newest iteration of Robin, a Black Bat, a Spoiler, even a Red Hood, or a _Batman_ , maybe they could have survived. Maybe they could have thrived.

But they didn’t. So they all had to make do. 

It almost seemed like a blessing when his foster parents were killed in Mister Bloom’s siege on the city—not that any deaths of innocents, no matter how unlikeable, are acceptable, but because Duke got lost in the system, with Leslie Thompkins busy mourning the death of the man who used to be her ward, and he could devote all of his attention to the Robin movement.

“Okay!” Duke says with a grin. “Let’s do it. We need something like this.”

He’s about to start listing off ideas for something they could do tomorrow, when Dax interrupts, quiet and steely. “Do you ever regret doing this?” he asks with a graveness unlike him. “All of this. Because it was one thing when we were in high school and we took on odd jobs, but now we’re—” He swallows uncomfortably. “ _This_ is our responsibility. We haven’t been children since we joined. And I wouldn’t trade you guys for the world, and I’m not _unhappy_ with the situation, I just wonder, sometimes. If our lives were different.”

“No,” Riko responds immediately, coals burning in her voice. “We have a purpose. And it’s this. And even if we didn’t, I will _never_ regret helping.”

Duke couldn’t have said it better himself, but he continues it anyways. “We all made a choice to be in this line of work. We _chose_ to help people instead of standing by, and we chose to try to save this hellhole instead of abandoning it. And I think,” he says, “that even though it’s rough sometimes, we get rewarded. Rainbows after the rain. I mean, look at how many Robins are with us. _We_ inspire that kind of hope. So no, I don’t regret it.”

Dax’s face freezes in tightly knit anxiety, and he swallows hard. “Thought you’d say that. That’s who you are, Duke. You and Riko and Dre. You don’t hesitate, you just jump right into it.”

Duke opens his mouth to fire back, that he hesitated once and it cost him his parents, he hesitated again and it cost them Troy Walker, and by the third time he hesitated, there were countless people Mister Bloom killed that could have survived instead, but Izzy beats him to it.

“And what am I?” she teases, her tired eyes twinkling. “Chopped liver?”

And with that, one Izzy Ortiz sparks movement where everyone had stilled. 

“You and I,” Dax declares, after a moment of hesitation, with a weary levity, “are the most important part of this team. Impulse control.”

Izzy hides her laugh in a fist, a habit created in the first year they’d been friends. Duke doesn’t flinch at laughter as much anymore, only certain intonations, but the habits remain. “I’ll show _you_ impulse control,” she mutters. “I’m going to launch myself into the harbor.”

(Despite this, there’s a truth to Dax’s statement. Duke can’t count how many times Izzy has stopped him from walking into a wall after a few all-nighters. Metaphorically _and_ literally.)

“Please don’t,” Duke pleads, his eyes crinkling with mirth. “Because then I’m going to be compelled to do it with you. To save you if you drown, of course.

Dre slams his hands down on the table. “Bet!” he announces. “Bet neither of you are willing to do it from sixty feet up.” 

Duke scrambles to his feet as Izzy jolts up in her seat. “Bet!” they both chime at the same time, mock-glaring at each other.

“I’ll be the referee!” Riko blows on a whistle she wears on her nearly all the time now, which is mostly used for training purposes. Sometimes used for nefarious purposes, like being able to declare herself referee. 

Dax stares at them and a fond grin pulls at the side of his face. He sighs. “Okay, you guys have sold me. I’m in. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Duke agrees, nodding. 

He catches Dax’s gaze, then Izzy’s, then Riko’s, then Dre’s. They may be in charge of protecting the city, it may be their purpose and their responsibility, but a thread connects them beyond that. It’s their easy banter and tense shoulders dropping in each other’s presence, in the apartment they share even if they barely see each other, the way they can fight side by side and never have to say a word.

(Years of this changes people, but some things, Duke knows in his bones, will never change.)

((And as it turns out, he and Riko _didn’t_ say everything they didn’t regret about this gig. He still stands by that speech, though, it’s a damn good one.))


End file.
